The query caught me a bit off guard. As much, because my mother didn’t really ask direct questions — or even ask questions at all. She was more the kind of quiet, worrying type, trusting that things would more or less work out on their own. And, I expect that experience had taught her that her son would have an answer of sorts in any event . . . or would just keep talking until the conversation had wandered sufficiently far from the initial point that we were both now lost in the fog of words.

I had recently returned from an ‘hiatus’ from my studies. A promising and pretty predictable high school career, with good grades, no disciplinary corrections (that one would note), and, Heaven forfend, any failed subjects, had moved to acceptance at Western. No worries, enrolled in pre-business, with an eclectic collection of English, history, economics, Latin, and psychology as the supporting cast. Securely housed in residence under the watchful eye of a responsible, fourth year med student as house don — what could go wrong? As it turned out, lots.

Two (and a half) hopeful reboots later, the collective, family decision was made that perhaps a wee break from all this expensive and, as yet, not wholly successful, post- secondary endeavour might be in order.

My close friend (and decidedly more committed scholar), on completion of a double language major degree, had taken a teaching position in the south of France and, as delicately as they could, parents encouraged me to sort things out — in his (hopefully) stabilizing company. Sold!

A year’s worth of reflection, not to mention subsistence living, can do a lot for one’s perspective. Longer hair and a longer view now holding sway, I apparently had come to my senses — or whatever passed for sense in the early ’70’s. Close observation of the human condition (foibles and vulnerabilities included) had been fuelled of necessity. An attractive co-hiker made hitching a ride infinitely more accessible. A ready explanation for what, on first glance might appear to be wide of a truthful mark, could save hours of tedious inquiry. Feigned incomprehension, language barriers being what they were, fostered a confused shrug in place of a dressing down. Functional empathy in play . . . watch and learn. Grifting 101.

I reasoned that hammering away at the Ivy School of Business may not have been the way to go — at least not in the conventional sense. In my year of living. . . well, just living, I’d accumulated a substantial store of understanding (albeit informal) of just how this human animal functions in situ. It seemed to be a bit of a waste to just ditch all that practical prep work. And so, on to psychology . . . in a more (or less) formal way. And hence, the question.

‘What is psychology for?’ she asked. I could see her point, particularly against a backstory of less than stellar scholastic efforts to date. And, to be fair, most anything (excepting perhaps philosophy) would, on the surface, offer a career choice with a
more direct vector to, well, usefulness. So I punted. ‘To be a psychologist the basics needed to be acquired: child development, a smattering of neuroscience, statistics, assessment, vocational choice, forensics, social and (what I’d been unofficially ‘studying’ for the preceding twelve-month) abnormal psychology’. The pause, slow nod, and slightly furrowed brow suggested that there were follow-up queries lurking. But perhaps that was enough for now. The word fog was settling in. And I’m not entirely sure she really wanted an answer. Or. . . for that matter, I could have provided one.

Riddle me this. When do science, AI, Republican politics, the Internet, and Frankenstein’s monster cross the line from fascinating to fearsome, daring to dangerous, experimental to egomaniacal, compelling to cautionary?

Knitting together a number of seemingly random threads, sometimes results in a sweater — although often it’s just a mis-sized sock with a bunched up toe. And mostly it just takes me down a rabbit hole that, while each side tunnel seems pretty promising at the time. . . So I just hold my Alice and jump into Wonderland.

I finished reading Our Hideous Progeny, a well-spun modern novel set in Victorian England some three decades after the publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Predicated on the ‘truth’ of Shelley’s tale, it traces another ill-conceived attempt to ‘animate from the inanimate’ couched in the decidedly less tragic but equally misguided effort that ends (spoiler alert) with the bad guy getting his comeuppance, the ineffectual male fading into the woodwork, and the heroine / narrator finding lots of common ground with feminist scientists of the day. In short, a happy-ish ending with the ‘monster’ wending its way north where it presumably will reside contentedly thereafter.

Well, Alice, that’s leaving me pretty much hanging fire. Unfinished business being what it is, I am transported six decades in the rear view to the two-foot high stack of novels beside my college dorm shelf (that serves as a desk) and constituting the reading list for a second year novels course. These are arranged, more or less in the order in which they will likely be ‘read’ (aka, thinest on top, thickest on the bottom, anchored by Don Quixote). Weighing in at a mere 258 pages, Frankenstein beckons — but evidently not sufficient to actually make the cut. For, on any number of shelves it subsequently sat, uncracked. . . til now.

Shelley’s cautionary tale, prophetically subtitled A Modern Prometheus, chronicles (as all, who were less distracted by beer and bridge in earlier times, will know) the high cost of hubris — not to mention the fate of those who would (not to put too fine a point on it) f____ with Mother Nature or Father Zeus. Ever the trickster, old Prom is also credited with being science’s patriarch. (We may be inching our way toward the riddle’s solution!)

Our less than loveable monster was not ever thus (i.e., unloveable). Before his rather abrupt disillusionment, the demon was hot into self-improvement, courtesy of his extended (and frankly voyeuristic) observational phase. But the penny was beginning to drop:

Was man at once so powerful, so virtuous and magnificent, yet so vicious and base?

Sadly, once the switch is flipped (‘polarities’, actual and metaphoric being what they are), there is no middle ground — all virtue and good intention morph precipitously into evil and that, as they say, is that.

Which brings us to politics, AI, science, et al. The conundrum facing young Victor was, being a bit reductionist about it, ‘what do we do with a problem like a monster?’ (The Hills, after all, were the Swiss Alps,!) Dr. F had, in his youthful zeal not fully factored in the morality of his obsession. All well and good to build it. Now what, as the ‘creation’ by times, self-educates, becomes lonely, then gets a little pissed at being beaten and misunderstood — ultimately transforming into the consummate killing machine.

AI, for its part, has been hailed with equal parts worship and, increasingly, worry. Chatbots write great poetry, reproduce literature, make art, and, and, and. They also cheat on essay assignments, foster gender-bias, foment social media based hatred and misinformation, and, and, and. Delphi, a theoretically ‘ethical’ chatbot, when queried about the acceptability of smothering a baby with a pillow, responded that acting ‘sweetly and gently’ is acceptable (albeit condemning the actual, ‘unqualified’ act). Hmm.

The GOP’s current challenges present a similar dilemma. ‘Soooo… we built this monster in 2016. And now the f____er just won’t go away. Going about killing our base and now has his crosshairs set on wiping out small ‘d’ democracy. This was not the plan!’ Orange Jesus, indeed. Perhaps the more apt moniker: Orange Lazarus. Where’s a good ice floe when you need one?

Ah yes, the riddle. The short answer would seem to be ‘when there’s no moral core’. Truth be told, this was never a big ticket concern for most politicians. As with our Victor, ‘doing it’ was not the root issue. Living with it, the potential for misuse and ultimately abuse, is the issue. The Promethean legacy has apparently very popular ‘sequels’ — be it the dude who serves up his renewed liver on a regular basis, Shelley’s monster, Oppenheimer (next up on the reading list, gulp, is the American Prometheus), or OJ (that would be Orangeman!). No heart, no morality, no problem. . . until there is.

J. Robert Oppenheimer, an iconic figure of the 20th century, was a brilliant physicist who led efforts to build an atomic bomb but later confronted the moral consequences of scientific progress… (from a publisher’s summary).

(And, after that Rachel Maddow’s Prequel.)